Heretofore, a relatively sizable number of gages corresponding in general to the structure shown in my previously issued U.S. Pat. No. 2,999,282 have been built and used successfully commercially for gaging and inspecting of a variety of articles and large quantities of articles have been tested satisfactorily in such gages. In gages of this type, it is possible to record or measure the position of a laterally outer end of a template that is slidably mounted in a carrier cartridge mounted on a support post, column or the like in the gage. This laterally outer end of the slide template is accurately correlated in size or position in relation to the position of the laterally inner end of the gage as it engages one surface of the test article. In these prior gages, a plurality of indicators have been used, normally, adjacent each lateral margin of the apparatus for indicating or measuring the size or contour of the test specimen article at a plurality of levels of the test article. Usually a plurality of indicators that have needed to be operatively positioned on each lateral margin of the gage have the test article positioned at the central portion of the gage.
Use of a plurality of the indicators on any gage has made the apparatus bulky and it has been time consuming to set the individual indicators for them to correlate their measuring actions.